


Return of a Jedi

by softmoonlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ajan Kloss, Anti Kylo Ren, Bitterness, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Don't Like Don't Read, Gen, Introspection, Jedi Kaydel Ko Connix, Kaydel Ko Connix is Leia Organa and Han Solo's Daughter, Kaydel Solo, Leia Organa Deserves Better, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Skywalker Family Drama, it's okay not to forgive people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoonlight/pseuds/softmoonlight
Summary: Shewantedto be sorry he was dead. After all, she had loved him once. For all his flaws, she wanted to believe he had loved her too.But sitting here alone on the floor of a dimly-lit closet, poring over yet another damage report, she only feltrelief.Forgiveness has always been much harder for some of them than it is for others.
Relationships: Kaydel Ko Connix & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Kaydel Ko Connix & Leia Organa
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Return of a Jedi

**Author's Note:**

> Because Leia deserves a child who isn’t a piece of shit, and there’s so much narrative potential in a Solo child that didn’t turn. Especially one that’s literally played by Billie.
> 
> Seriously, do not read this if you like Kylo. But if you’re salty as hell like me, this is the fic for you.
> 
> tw: sight and smell of dead bodies, mild Rey bashing too? I tried to be fair but this is a perspective thing and I am kinda resentful of Rey now...

She _wanted_ to be sorry he was dead. After all, she had loved him once. For all his flaws, she wanted to believe he had loved her too.

But sitting here alone on the floor of a dimly-lit closet, poring over yet another damage report, she only felt _relief._

More than that, she burned with a quiet sort of hatred that stung at her eyes and choked off her breath. In public, a well-practiced smile usually hid it well, but during the celebrations, every sip of her drink made it harder to pretend. Toward the end, she’d finally had to excuse herself to grunt work just to get her mind off it.

Everything came back to him. _Everything_ wrong in her life was his fault.

He killed her chance at being a Jedi when he burned down the Temple. The only reason she was even alive was because she had been visiting her mother at the Senate. At fifteen, she’d never seen true violence. The smell and sight when she returned still haunted her seven years later, even as war made her far more familiar with it all than she ever wanted to be.

Then the rest of her universe fell apart piece by piece. Her parents fought horribly and eventually split up. Her mother threw herself into her work more than ever. Her father returned to smuggling, and she barely saw him anymore. Her uncle turned in on himself in grief and guilt and fell off the face of the galactic map. Her growing turmoil slipped her grasp on the Force.

They all became shells of themselves.

But that wasn’t enough for him. He had to take and take and _take_ until she had nothing left, and neither did anyone else.

She’d heard the debriefings. She knew he had stabbed their father in the heart even as he offered him help he didn’t deserve. 

She’d been on the flagship fleeing D’Qar. She’d felt his explosive, petulant rage as he chased her and their mother halfway across the galaxy to try and kill them. In the end, he killed their uncle as he tried to protect them. 

And a few hours ago, her mother had given up her life for his.

He killed everything everyone had worked for, and she doubted he’d even been sorry. He was entitled like that; he had screamed at Finn for their grandfather’s lightsaber, and he had seen the entire galaxy as his right.

Rey, the girl who presumed to call herself Skywalker, said he turned back. He was the reason she survived at all. Leia Organa’s Life Force now flowed through her veins.

 _Great!_ She had wanted to sneer. That wouldn’t bring any of her family back. That wouldn’t bring the Jedi back. That wouldn’t bring Hosnian Prime back. That wouldn’t fix _anything._

He was dead now, and she didn’t have to forgive a _living_ person, let alone a memory. Her mother taught her that. 

She knew she had probably hurt her when she chose to actively shed the name she’d been born with, but she’d understood better than anyone else in the galaxy could. It had been too much to bear the weight of her family when one of them began destroying the galaxy all over again, and when the secret of her grandfather went public and everyone hated them.

When it all came crashing down, thanks to those two, her mother had held her hand and even helped her pick out the name. She helped her decide on a new life story to avoid having to address the old one.

But now she was the only one left. No one in the galaxy lived with a claim to the names Organa or Solo. Even Skywalker was arguable, although she was trying her hardest to make peace with her declared cousin. She didn’t want to begrudge the girl the name, given how important adoption was in their family, but it smarted anyway. Her mother should be alive, and the sight of someone else here quite literally in her place was too much to stomach.

Staring at the signature field on her datapad, she knew she stood at a crossroads. A choice needed to be made.

She could continue living in shadow, a wallflower to all major events. It was what she instinctively wanted to do.

But she couldn’t.

If her brother had destroyed her mother’s legacy, her father’s legacy, and her uncle’s legacy, then she would rebuild it. That wasn’t her job, and her mother assured her as much the day she’d become Connix, but she had been running from who she was long enough. She couldn’t let them be remembered as just the family that produced Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. The rest of them had done too much good for that to be their ultimate ending.

For the first time in forever, she signed the next form to cross her datapad _Breha Solo_. She set the device down and opened up the locked drawer with several innocuous shapes and a rather unremarkable rock scattered within. It sang to her, a little louder than before.

Now that her focus was on _change_ rather than the past, the pieces assembled themselves with ease. She caught the familiar hilt out of the air. Her thumb hesitated on the ignition before she finally mustered up the courage and pushed, a brilliant purple blade springing to blinding life in the near dark confines of the room. There was a small, true smile on her face.

She had several lifetimes’ worth of work to do. Breha trusted her friends would help her shoulder it. Her blood relatives may have been gone, and she may have lost everything, but she wasn’t alone _._

**Author's Note:**

> -The purple blade is because Carrie wanted a purple lightsaber iirc and tros did not give us that :(
> 
> -Yes, I know rokr tried to retcon that Kylo destroyed the temple but I found that a weak writing choice and utterly implausible. Regardless, I follow the tiered canon system, so whenever canon is contradictory, I go by whatever’s said in movies > books/comics > video games.
> 
> -Leia naming a kid “Ben” is stupid as hell and should’ve been kept for Luke’s EU kid, but you can’t tell me she wouldn’t name a daughter Breha


End file.
